I was watching 60 Minutes one night, and one of the segments was on adult entertainment. I really wanted to turn it off. But I watched, and frankly, I was so fascinated by it that I actually downloaded the hard copy on my computer because I wanted to make sure the numbers were right. Now, this goes back to the year 2003, so I imagine things have gotten a little bit worse since then. I think what intrigued me about it was that there was nobody really speaking out against it. There was one congresswoman who was, but it was only to ensure that those who were filming the pornography were not being abused in some way. So essentially what we're talking about is something that's totally legal in this country and people are taking advantage of it everywhere. But it was the data that they shared that was rather alarming to me. Just consider some of these facts, for instance, that back in the year 2003, that $10 billion was spent on adult entertainment. 11,000 new titles were brought out. There are more people employed in the porno industry than all the other film industries combined. More money is spent on adult entertainment than combined sports. That's absolutely mind-boggling to me, of how much is actually viewed. At that time, over 800 million DVD or VH rentals were available for the 300 million people who live in the United States. And I think the most intriguing one to me was that if you put the word sex in a search engine like Google, at that time you get 180 million hits. I sent that data over to England, we have an office in Reading, England, and my UK director at that time did put the word sex in the search engine like Google and he got over 300 million hits in our latest book on overcoming sexual problems, addictions in our life. The publisher put it in and five years later it was right under a billion hits. Now what in the world are all those sites? I have no idea because I don't want to put that into my search engine. So it's kind of intriguing to me the wide scope of this particular problem. If you go into an average hotel and you watch television and it has movies available, Over 50% of the people who rent that hotel room will actually download and use some porno addiction program and that's 75% of their profit. the years I remember when I left the pastorate and went to teach at Talbot School of Theology I went there knowing there were people who had problems that I didn't have answers for, which really bothered me. I believed Christ was the answer. I believed truth would set people free. And then over the years I learned how to help people really, truly find their freedom in Christ. And really essentially what it is it requires true repentance and faith in God. Well, one of the things that just kept cropping up over and over and over and over and over again was sexual problems. I said, why is this always the case? As I mused on that over the years, I started to realize that sex is the means by which you propagate in either kingdom, either for good or for evil, and God really put restrictions on that to ensure that we wouldn't perpetuate a problem that would increase as it multiplies from one generation to another. So I started to get more curious about that and say there's got to be an answer for this. There's got to be some means by which we can not only help people live up to the standard that God created us to live, but to protect something that God created. God created sex. We are not against sex as Christians, that doesn't even make sense. Adam and Eve were created as sexual beings, female and male He created them. They could have intimate relationships together in the presence of God and they did. And so sex was intended for pleasure and procreation by God. What happened was when man sinned and separated themselves from God then it became perverted and problems everywhere all over the world. And unfortunately what happens is you start destroying marriages, ministries, and now the way it's developed around the world, I see kids now are sexing, they're using their phones to show intimate pictures of themselves, send it to their boyfriends, and your website is just loaded with it. And you know, it's kind of like Houston, we got a problem. Is there any hope for this? Is there any answers? Is there a way that we can actually get back to understanding what God had intended us to have, that within the confinement of marriage, sex is a wonderful way for a husband and wife to show their love for each other? And I think the answer is emphatically yes. I mean, if we want to have sexual purity, we can get back to that. You know, in one sense, I suppose the problem is continuing to get worse because there is so much access to it. When I look back on my own childhood it was very innocent. And I thank God for that. Truth of the matter is I was born on a farm in Minnesota. There was no pornography available to me. If I really wanted to look for it I'd have to find it in Sears catalog in the underwear section or something like that. And to actually look for something that was pornographic you'd have to find some sleazy place and be scared to go in there because somebody may see you going in there. Now it's on everybody's computer. It's in every hotel room that you use. in every hotel room has told their people who clean up after you there to make sure they look under the mattresses and all the cushions and everything else because people leave pornography behind. And so we have a major, major problem. And what I need to help people understand, the scope of this problem is so great, but we as Christians are not speaking against sex. We're not speaking against what God had created. What we're speaking against is the misuse and abuse of it that leaves people in bondage to pornography, leaves people sexually addicted where they can't stop. Like any other addiction in this world, it isn't a question of saying, gee, is this really wrong? I said, really the question comes down and it says, can you stop? Or is this something that has so got you in bondage that I can't stop anymore even if I wanted to for some reason I can't get out of this cycle. There's hope for you. There is an answer and it's Christ and we want to show you how to do that. So the scope of this problem is huge and yet I honestly believe in the midst of all of that we have an answer and that answer really is to get back into a righteous relationship with God. Find our freedom in Christ. Know who we are as a child of God. You're not a pervert. You're not an addict. You are a child of God. When you think of sex viewed as just pleasure and you say, why not? And so you go out and you pursue that direction in your life. A lot of times we don't realize that what starts out as an innocent infatuation, the attraction to the opposite sex, can potentially lead to addiction to a point where I just simply can't stand. And that path to addiction has been captured in the life of David for instance and his son Abislam. David looked at Bathsheba, nothing wrong with that, we are attracted to the opposite sex and that's normal, it's a God given thing which would cause us to come together. But what happens like any other addiction it starts off with something that is good, it's innocent and there is no problem associated with that. But you develop what they call a tolerance. It's like looking at alcohol. One beer, you get a little high, and that feels good, and so you want that high again. But after a while, it takes two beers to have that same high, and then three beers, and then a six pack, and now you need a chaser. And every time that you keep trying to get back to that pleasurable thing that you had before, Unfortunately, there's a crash and the next day you get up and maybe you feel a little shame and just a little guilt, but you'd like to get back to that experience again. And you always kind of think of, there's a baseline experience that I had and I want to get back to that. But it takes more and more to do that. Same happens actually sexually. You start out and you ask a girl for a date and boy that's fun and she reaches over and touches your knee and you about jump out the window and just the slightest little thing creates that kind of response and it's very euphoric and so you want that euphoric experience again. But just a touch won't do it. And after a while, then you take up your nerve and you have your first kiss, and then a French kiss, and then touching and fondling, and it just continues on and on and on. And after a while, you can't saturate it. The more you develop a pattern of lust like that, the more you feed it, the more it grows. And so it begins to get gross and gross and gross. the guilt and the shame gets worse, and worse, and worse. And the chemical addictions you can end up dying obviously, but to a point where you can't stop. I remember several years ago when I was pretty young in ministry a girl in my college department asked me to speak at her local college campus. It was not a Christian school, but it was a course on marriage and dating, etc. And there was I think 18 gals and about three guys. And one guy pulled his desk off into the corner and by himself and obviously a little bit of a protest that the Christian influence was going to come into this class. And anytime I said something he didn't like he gave some kind of a little noise over in the corner. I just ignored him. And then somebody asked the question, what do Christians teach about masturbation? And before I could answer he said, well I do it all the time. And I kind of looked at him and said, well congratulations. I said, can you stop? Well, didn't hear any more from him until the end of the class and everybody left. And he kind of slaunted by and he said, so why would I want to stop? I said, that's not the question I asked you. I asked you if you could. I said, what you think is freedom, I think is bondage. And he kind of shrugged his shoulders and left. And it's like any other addiction in our life. I said, the big question is, he said, well, I can stop any time. I said, the only way you can prove that to yourself or anybody else is stop, see if you can. And I remember years ago, I was in a campus life meeting and a guy was poo-pooing everything I was saying. And so I kind of asked him about if he subscribed to Playboy. And well, he did as it turned out. And I said, I'll make you a bet. And he said, what's that? And I said, well, the next time the next issue comes, stick it by your bedside, but don't open it for a day. See if you can do that. I didn't see him again for three months. I was walking on campus, and he saw me and kind of walked away, and I caught up with him. I said, hey, I've missed you. Where you been? He said, well, he said, I came with my girlfriend that one time. And so I said, by the way, we had a little bet. How'd that go? Did you make it through a day? Two days, five days, a week? And, well, stupid bet. I said, you know, the sad part about that is, I don't think I could either. I said, to put yourself in that kind of undue temptation, you're probably going to fail. I said, so, but to think that I can just not look at it and have it there, I said, is crazy. And unfortunately, we have access now to the computer, to the television, to whatever you want, and the access is kind of always there. And so, somehow, if you want out of this thing, you've got to get rid of that access. Otherwise, you're just probably going to turn to it. It's too available to you. It's kind of like food, you know, if you've got junk food everywhere, you're probably going to take it, get rid of the junk food, and put wholesome food there, and chances are, you're hungry, that's what you're going to turn towards. And so that is a problem that we all face. I love what the Lord had to say about all of this in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. Any man who looks after a woman in lust has already committed adultery in his heart. Therefore, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. If your arm offends you, cut it off. Does your eye offend you? Does your arm? Of course not, those are rhetorical questions. If that was the answer, everybody here would be lobbing off body parts, and we'd be nothing but bloody torsos rolling up and down the aisles, and you still wouldn't have solved the problem. Listen to the verse again. Any man who's looked after a woman in lust has already committed adultery in his heart. So what would you have to change? Your heart. actually that's what should happen every time that we come to Christ. In the Old Testament our heart is deceitful and desperately sick. See it is that way because we are separated from God. But we've been given a new heart and a new spirit. That's prophesied in Ezekiel, told to us in the Gospel. What the Lord is looking at is genuine righteousness. Don't try to change this thing externally, it doesn't work. The law will not get you out of this. You have to have a new heart. And And you can have that if you really come to Christ. And once that process is there, then you have to learn how to win that battle for your mind. But this is a winnable war. When we think of Christians and trying to live a righteous life and to really be free from our past, what is the major issue? Where is the battle at? The battle is in the mind. We are told in 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3-5 about mental strongholds, thoughts that are raised up against the knowledge of God. Now how does that happen? Well you are going to find agreement even in the secular world with Christianity and how we develop our world view, what our attitudes are. We simply develop those strongholds by living in the environment in which we are raised. And frankly in two ways through what I call prevailing experiences. In other words the home that you were raised in, that you had, the playgrounds that you played in, the schools you went to, the church you went to, or the church you didn't go to. I'm a grandfather, I love being that. My first grandchild, little Sammy, was born into, I think, a pretty nice home. And I'm a little prejudiced, I admit to that. But everybody that he knows around him, they're all Christians, mom and dad, grandparents, cousins. And I can see how that's affected him. When we go to the mall shopping, he says hi to everybody, because this is a good world. This is a friendly world. Everybody thinks he's cute, and they kind of like him. Well, Sammy's 14 now, and he's found out there's a whole different world out there. But let's take another boy. Let's take a boy that was raised in a family who doesn't even know who his birth father is. Mother has multiple partners. Many of them spend the night with her. Some of them beat him up. What's his worldview? What's his perception of reality? Obviously both boys need the Lord because both boys are born dead in their trespasses and sins. But when we come to Christ all that has been formed into our mind isn't erased. That's why Paul says, no longer be conformed to this world because we all were, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Now that's going to take time to do that. So whatever we have assimilated from our environment, not just by prevailing experiences but often times traumatic experiences. Experiences that are burned into our mind, not over time now, but burned into our mind because of the trauma of the experience. And the major one in that usually is sexual experiences, sexual abuse, sexual traumas. But if you were also raised in a home where pornography was available, where there were no standards set, obviously you're going to struggle with this more than somebody else does. But the truth is when we come to Christ, I mean I wish there was a, we said, gee there is a clear button here. And I pushed the clear button and all that porno imagery is all gone. I said, that doesn't exist unfortunately. I remember when I came to Christ I was in my 20's I had spent four years in the Navy. Need I say more? I was exposed to an awful lot of junk, images I wish weren't there. But truth of the matter is, they were there, and I'd seen a lot of garbage I wish I'd never put into my mind. And then one day I decided, you know, boy I'm a Christian now, I'm gonna clean up my mind. Now the moment I said that, did the problem get worse or better? Worse. Why is that? Well, when you're given into temptation, there's no issue. The moment you stop, you start to realize the battle that is going on for our minds. At that time, I think I read that an average man had some thought of sex every seven minutes. I was beating that one two to one. I was wondering, why is this so blooming hard? then I started to realize, I said, this is a battle, but truth of the matter is we can win this battle. Those thoughts have been raised up against the knowledge of God. But we are not just up against the world, the flesh, and the Devil, we are up against all kinds of forces that would somehow or another try to keep me in bondage to my past. But in Christ we literally have the opportunity to be new creations and Christ and actually be set free from our past. So we have to win this battle for our minds. When I think of how a Christian can live a righteous life, and so much of it goes back to Paul's theology that we have to be firmly rooted in Christ, not being built up in him. But the real battle to overcome our past is to win that battle for our mind. Thoughts have been raised up against the knowledge of God. We learn to live our life independent of God. And now that we have a new relationship with God, that we're united with Him, actually can win this battle because we have the mind of Christ within us. The Holy Spirit is here to lead us into all truth. If you want to grow spiritually essentially think of your mind as like a computer, garbage in, garbage out. So somehow or another I have to reprogram that computer. But if you really want to win that battle you've got to also check for viruses. And there is also a spiritual battle going on for our mind. People need to realize that computer viruses are not there by accident. They've all been put there somehow, disgruntled employees, people trying to invade your computer. And so those viruses are there to destroy the way that it works. We are clearly told in 1 Timothy 4, verse 1, the Holy Spirit explicitly says, He's not mumbling, He's not telling us by way of a parable, this is something that is kind of like gong, gong, gong, don't miss this one. In latter days people are going to fall away from the faith paying attention to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons. That is actually happening all over the world. I've had the privilege in the last 20 years probably to sit down with somewhere around 1,500 maybe 2,000 adults to help them find their freedom in Christ who are struggling in the thought life almost without exception. That battle for their mind has proven to be a spiritual battle. Now that's not bad news, that's actually good news. If we know what the battle is we can win this war. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.11, I am concerned as Satan deceived Eve by his craftiness, that your minds be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. So if you want to win this battle for your mind, it isn't just that world system out there that somehow or another I've got to stay away from the porno, I've got to stay away from all the outside influences. I'm also battling the flesh pre-programmed thoughts in my mind that I had put in there before I came to Christ, or can continue to put in there as a believer. I'm also against that spiritual battle that is taking place for our mind. That part of this war is winnable. When we've helped God, submit to God and resist the devil, and you remove that influence, now you're only battling with the flesh. I find out that this battle is much more winnable. of people are a little upset at times to think that somehow or another this problem is something other than just my flesh. But truth of the matter is there is a God of this world and the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One, and He is the Father of lives, and He is the Deceiver. You cannot think of winning this battle that it is only a flesh or a world problem. It is the world, the flesh, and the Devil. And we've helped people find that freedom in Christ, once they've found that place then they discover there actually is a peace of God that passes on to any God in their heart and their mind. Now they have a working opportunity to win this battle for their mind. You can't do away with the flesh, you have to learn to crucify that and that will take times to do that. But if you would help people an awful lot more, and people would be helped an awful lot more, if they realize that some of those thoughts are not their own, that all the condemning, blasphemous thoughts that people are struggling with, what would happen is suddenly you were rid of those, you were free of those. And now, I believe you'd begin to understand that I am not this evil, dirty person that I thought I was. I'm a new creation in Christ, and I'm struggling with my flesh yet, but I've got a war now that I believe I can win.